Hitachi to Buy Pentaho for Big Data, Analytics Software

(Bloomberg) -- Hitachi Ltd.’s enterprise-technology unit plans to acquire data-management company Pentaho Corp. for $500 million to $600 million, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Hitachi Data Systems will merge Pentaho’s data analysis and management tools into its products, while other technologies will be used in Hitachi’s ventures in areas such as the Internet-of-things and large-scale data processing, the companies said in a statement today.

Enterprise information-technology companies are seeking to better respond to growing amounts of data that companies need to analyze by buying up firms with expertise in information analysis. Other recent deals include Microsoft Corp.’s agreement to acquire Revolution Analytics last month, and Salesforce.com Inc.’s purchase of e-mail-analysis startup RelateIQ for about $400 million in July.

Joseph Beare, a spokesman for Hitachi Data Systems, and Katie Watson, a spokeswoman for Pentaho, declined to comment on the deal price. Pentaho’s open-source software will continue to be free following the acquisition, which is scheduled to close in June this year.

Pentaho, based in Orlando, Florida, is Hitachi’s 12th-largest acquisition to date, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Hitachi has been reselling Pentaho’s technology for the past year before the deal, according to Kevin Eggleston, Hitachi Data Systems senior vice president of Social Innovation and Global Industries.

“We’re taking their capabilities, especially data blending, data on the ingest side, data orchestration and will be using it as part of our stack in big data and Internet of things,” Eggleston said.

Pentaho, which has 285 employees, was founded in 2004 and had $60 million in venture funding to date from investors including New Enterprise Associates, Index Ventures, Benchmark and DAG Ventures.